'Reigns: Game of Thrones' lets you write your own Season 8

This might be controversial, but I believe the best ruler to keep Westeros safe and protected is actually Cersei Lannister.

That's my big takeaway after spending hours swiping left and right on the big decisions in Reigns: Game of Thrones. The partnership between HBO and Devolver Digital is coming to Android/iOS and PC this October, and it is very much a Choose-Your-Own-Game-Of-Thrones-Adventure.

First, a little background on Reigns. The mobile-born strategy game and its Her Majesty follow-up operate under a simple yet engaging premise: What if the complex socio-political mechanics of ruling an entire kingdom worked like Tinder?

Reigns presents you with a series of cards that each feature one of the many figures you interact with as a ruler: advisers, courtesans, spies, enemy generals, the whole deal. Most cards are accompanied by some kind of dilemma for you to preside over or decision to make.

You move things forward by swiping left or right on each card, which seals your choice (you can preview each option by half-swiping in either direction before you commit). Most of your decisions influence a set of four meters, each of which relate to the power held in different corners of your kingdom: Military, religion, commonfolk, and wealth.

Image: NERIAL / DEVOLVER DIGITAL / HBO

Image: NERIAL / DEVOLVER DIGITAL / HBO

Your goal as you play is to keep the four meters in a relative balance. Let any one of them fill up or empty out completely and it's game over. But there's always a reason to dive back in after losing; your progress leads to new sets of cards being unlocked, and those offer new stories and characters.

Reigns: Game of Thrones does more than just run with that idea — which, let's be honest, already lends itself very well to the Westeros setting! The new game picks up in the aftermath of HBO's Season 7, so you're basically charting your own Season 8 with each card swipe.

More than that though, the whole game is framed as a thought exercise presided over by the Red Priestess herself, Melisandre. When we last left the Westeros of the HBO series, Cersei held the Iron Throne while Daenerys and Jon Snow worked to shut down the threat of the White Walkers.

In Reigns: Game of Thrones, you decide where all the bodies are buried.

In Melisandre's version of events, all the big moments of Season 7 and earlier still happened: The Great Sept of Baelor is a pile of rubble, Viserion the dragon is an undead terror, and the Iron Fleet is a force to be reckoned with. But the person who actually leads from the Iron Throne is your choice to make.

Only Dany is unlocked at first, but the more you play — and the more you complete various challenges like "Hear a Knight's oath" or "Discover Littlefinger's legacy" — the more possible rulers are unlocked. It's characters you know and love, too. Tyrion Lannister, Sansa Stark, and yes, Cersei herself are all among the nine playable queens and kings.

Just like the other Reigns games, there's an element of randomness in each play session. You might face a pitched battle against Dorne right away in your first outing as Queen Cersei, but then broker widespread peace across the land in your next playthrough.

Image: NERIAL / DEVOLVER DIGITAL / HBO

Completing challenges, then, is largely a product of luck and a growing familiarity with the story threads that each card tugs on. This isn't a game you get good at; it's a series of sewn-together Game of Thrones stories that are shaped by your decisions from top to bottom.

The more you play, the more story you unlock; and the more you unlock, you more options you have in each new story. Most of those efforts will end in your horrible death. But that's the promise of the show realized in game form, isn't it? As the tagline goes: When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.

Reigns: Game of Thrones ($3.99) puts you in a position of power, letting you decide where all the bodies are buried in Westeros. Look for it in the iOS App Store, Google Play, and PC via Steam sometime in October.

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